Garnishing – A Rare, Odd, And Meticulous Job Which Is Cash Cow

Lively images of food must be designed by food stylist and the crew.

How to garnish a dish

Main job of food stylish is to attractively display and to decorate dishes, to create ideas for photographers taking the best pictures of them in order to advertise brands, restaurants, or culinary firms. Playing with food is absolutely not as simple as people have thought.

“Food stylists need certain knowledge of culinary world. For instants, a slice of onion will change its colors and shape after 5 minutes, sliced banana flowers will turn black, or fried rolls will turn darker after drained. Therefore, these photos will not be at the best state”, share Bui Ly Tien Nguyen - 4 years experienced food stylist.

He also said, food under the heat of studio’s lights would drastically loose its freshness so that they always had to prepare more ingredients for replacement. For examples, to shot a bowl of instant noodles can cost a whole case of noodles or to shot a dish of salad might need a bucket full of vegetables.

If you were ever disappointed of a bare bowl of noodles, which was totally different from ads, or if your mouth was watering when seeing this photo, the food stylists of those commercial ads would be congratulated. Photo: Bui Ly Tien Nguyen

Nguyen Quang Viet, General chef of Ao Ta restaurant and manager of food images has own tricks to crown his food. “Fried rolls look much more beautiful if they’re just fried to yellowish because they will turn darker later. Pennywort juice is bruised green and does not look good on pictures so we have to dilute it and picture it in a highly refractive glass to highlight its coolly brightness. Similarly, red wine is actually really dark in photos so food stylists need to make a wine-colored liquid for shooting.”, said he.

Food stylist Nguyen Quang Viet was preparing for photo shooting of traditional Tet food. Photo: Nha Khanh

Furthermore, to create an eye-catching and lively dish, food stylists also have to decide how to slice or how to chop a piece of chili. Not only food but also dinning apparels need to be nice and need as well.

“Being food stylists of Vietnamese traditional food is much more difficult because they need lots of spices with their rules of combination. Without knowledge, food stylists could ruin the whole image of food or brands. For instants, a slaver of chicken rice could not have Mơ leaves (Paederia foetida L.), a dish of salad could not be only green, or a lardy dish need vegetable in display.”, share chef Quang Viet.

Nguyen Minh Ngoc was doing food making-up.

“To shoot a touching photo of food is much more difficult than to shoot fashion models because models can pose and move but food can’t. Usually it takes 45 minutes to shot a normal dish. Sometimes it takes a whole day with thousands photos but only one is chosen.”, said Nguyen Minh Ngoc. It took her a whole month to figure out how to make noodles “standing” on water surface and how to keep them still fresh during shooting progress. Another time, after struggling with ice shooting, she had to order fake ice from abroad just to make a perfect shot.

Sometimes, food stylist must use fake products during photo shooting, such as fake ice cream or fake ice so that they won’t melt after hours. “However, there’s always a rule that you just alter 20% of the food amount to make sure all images are honest and original. And retouching should not be abused on photos.”, added Minh Ngoc.

After being made-up. Photo: NVCC

When a contract was made, food stylists would have brainstormed for new ideas, looked for ingredients, and done several trials in advance. Sometimes they just hung around food for days.

“People might think food stylist job is just a piece of cake; actually they’re just for the shooting. There was a time we shot a dish of pork plucks and it really made us mouth watering but after hundreds of shots, it was not edible anymore”, said Nguyen Quang Viet. And Minh Ngoc would never forget the beef shooting, when she had to stay in beef storage for 3 days. She couldn’t have meat for the month later.

Exotic yet hot job

Food stylist job has been popular in the modern world but it’s still really new in Viet Nam, which was just known in recent couple years.

Besides freelance food stylists (individuals or groups), some stylists take a full time job in communication firms, tourism magazines, or special culinary companies as restaurants or food factories to have constant income.

According to Nguyen Quang Viet, income of an average food stylist ranks $700 - $800 per month but the nature of the job is seasonal so they don’t expect monthly salary. Bui Ly Tien Nguyen revealed that a shooting project at Viet Nam cost around $1000 but sometime a special big project could pay his group $7000.

Viet Nam has not had a professional course for food stylist career since the field is so young. Vietnamese food stylists must learn from other sources, such as foreign books and magazine or online instructions. In fact, most of food stylists in Viet Nam are chefs or cooks.

“This job requires your ultimate passion, creativity, imagination, knowledge of photograph (layout, set-up), and even chemical knowledge to create appealing effects (smoke, colored liquid)”, said Minh Ngoc about standards of her job.

“Definitely you need patience and meticulosity for this job. For instant, you have to place every single grain of rice in a bowl to create a soft and appetizing image. How come you get the task done if you’re in rush?”, emphasized Tien Nguyen.

“The most important point is the love of food”, shared General chef of Ao Ta restaurant.

By Thanh Huong/ Tien Phong

Translator: Thu Pham